Punch Mode In the Windows Mobile Application

Punch Mode Setup and Use

Time Portal normally requires that worker activity (clock-ins, piece counts, clock-outs) is recorded on a single device.  This allows employees to review and approve their daily hours and piece counts on an offline device.

In certain types of harvest work, it may be necessary to clock in on once device, collect pieces on other devices and clock out on yet another device, all without connection to the Internet.  Data collected from each device is eventually uploaded to the Time Portal web site and combined into Time Sheets for review.  Employees may review and approve their work using reports produced by the web application.

Punch Mode has been developed crews performing this type of work and to enable this new functionality, you simply need to enable “Punch Mode” for all the devices used by that crew.  Other crews can continue to use Time Portal in the traditional way that enables review and daily approvals using a single device.  

As illustrated below, the Main Screen will provide an indication when a device is in Punch Mode and the Items To Upload Indicator will let Crew Leaders know whether their information has been uploaded.

When a device is in Punch Mode, notice that the option for Time Sheets is not available since Time Sheets are not actually created on the device but instead will be created in the Web Application based on collected information.

While the Scan Barcodes Clock-in mode requires a Job (and possibly a location and crop/variety) to clock-in workers, these values are optional when in Punch Mode since they can be assigned on the web site.

Also, in Punch Mode, piece counts and weights can be collected for employees who have not clocked in on the device.  It is recommended but not required that the employee is clocked in and out (on some device) before and after pieces and weights are collected.

On a Windows Mobile device, when in Punch Mode and collecting weights on the Scan Barcodes Screen, options are available for specifying an empty container weight as well as a maximum number of containers that are allowed on the scale.  The empty container weight should be left at zero if the scale has been configured with a tare weight since the scale will have already deducted that amount when it provides a reading. 

The benefit of this feature is that, if differently weighted containers are in use, Time Portal makes it easy to change the "empty container weight" between weights/scans in order to avoid having to go into the Scale's settings.  As illustrated below, the empty container weight has been set to 0.5 LB.  If the scale registers 1.5 LB, Time Portal will record 1.0 LB for the employee whose barcode is scanned.